From 2-5 December the Instituto Camoes Portugal in association with Queen Mary University hosted the Women in Portuguese Cinema Festival. It’s a prime example of one of the many great things there are to do in London absolutely free of charge.
The Festival was my first foray into Lusophone cinema. Last Saturday I had the privilege of attending a screening of the premier of actress and director Teresa Villaverde’s ‘Cisne (Swan)’ about strangers whose paths intersect at a transitional stage of each of their lives.
Successful Portuguese chanteuse Vera (Beatriz Bartada) is the eponymous bird, gracefully gliding through life apparently fearless. Waiting for her at home is her cellist lover (possibly husband) the emotionally unstable Sam (Israel Pimento). He rather impertinently asks Vera to leave him home alone-in the house she bought-to explore what life is like without her. She graciously obliges by going on another tour during which she befriends the young man who is to be her driver and travelling companion, Pablito. He too is a ball of nerves, desperately yearning for the birth mother who gave him up as a toddler. Together they drift through Lisbon gradually forming an undefined but strong bond.
‘Cisne’ is an aesthetic delight. The Portuguese vista is captured at its most beautiful; clear azure skies and lush landscapes. The cast’s almost universally olive hue glows healthily in the bright Iberian sunshine. This all comes in very handy given the film is such a challenging, nebulous work. Villaverde really takes the idea of the celluloid short story as far as she can whilst still retaining something that vaguely resembles a coherent narrative. She is determined to give the audience only the bare bones of information.
‘Cisne’ ambles along as aimless and fractured in its beauty as the protagonists. Vera is carefree and supposedly inured to life’s little troubles but struggles to sleep alone. Her maternal relationship with all the men in her life betrays perhaps an underlying yearning she has taken pains to ignore. Pablito is hopelessly melodramatic. He blunders through life as if he has a monopoly on anguish and is somewhat self-involved. Yet he reveals a generosity of spirit in his solicitous attitude towards Vera and his attempts to rescue from an abusive environment a homeless orphan with whom he shares a fraternal affection. Sam and Vera’s muddled relationship speaks volumes about the symbiotic nature of male and female interaction in general.
In a post-show discussion Villaverde stressed that the film was not necessarily an allegory for the state of contemporary Portuguese society. Any sense of bewilderment and confusion is representative solely of these particular characters.
Despite its amorphous structure Cisne is a visually sumptuous wellspring of talking points, wherein lays its strength and charm.
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